First off, I was very optimistic about RQ. Go back and look at my forum comments, "it'll be fine guys, lets give it a chance". I was not one of the people with their pitchfork ready to riot.
I understand what you guys are trying to accomplish, and on paper, everything you've said is technically correct, but here's the bottom line.
Variety does not equal fun. Fun is different for everyone, depending where they're at, what they're working on, and who they're playing with. REMOVING CHOICE REMOVES FUN. Am i getting more AD by running a random dungeon/random skirmish? Yes, but it is NOT FUN, because instead of my play time being on my main 2-3 characters that are GOOD and STRONG that i have slaved to CREATE, and being rewarded with salveage that i can convert on ANY CHARACTER, I'm being FORCED to play all 15 of my characters that are not fun to play, that i couldn't possibly build up because after 1500 hours i'm still working on my first two characters. I also couldn't ever hope to churn through all their invoke bonus AD in this system because after going through 2 or 3 characters I'm bored and not having fun so I close the game.
Changes to this game have made it clear you don't like alts being used as invoke machines. With no changes to dungeon rewards you neglect that this is a necessity (even if you spend money on this game) to build up a single character.
You've removed choice, or at least the ability to choose and still get paid a reasonable amount for it. Stop saying we can still queue for whatever we want, we know, the point is that ITS NOT WORTH IT. We aren't being paid enough for our time. I find the choice I'm making more and more these days is to just not boot the game up.
Up until this latest patch totally shafted my progress (particularly with the inability to run skirmishes for AD anymore with my 9000 IL Main) I was planning on staying in this game and spending a lot of money during the Black Friday sale, but since the terrible patch that made it impossible for me to earn AD running the dungeons and I want/need or run any skirmishes for real amounts of AD at all, I've just decided to not stick around and spend money, and will just open my daily keys for a while, then quit when my VIP's gone.
These new changes are not respectful of my time, and don't add any fun to my experience. On the contrary, it limits my options and forces me to do stuff I don't want to do, making this "game" into something more akin to work that I'm supposed to want to pay for. When a game turns into work for me rather than play, and the developers don't listen to what me or like-minded people say, then I don't see a need to stick around.
I'm in a similar situation. My main is a DPS GF which means I get shoe-horned into being a tank for dungeon queues. I die repeatedly, the group fails, and I get nasty tells like, "Learn to tank loser". I don't want to tank, this character has never tanked. But I have no choice and it's ruined the game for me. And no, a load out doesn't fix the problem, I don't have tanking gear, enchants, or pets. I can't just wave a wand and become a tank that can tank eGWD let alone FBI. So I sit in town and craft and put up with bad RNG and wonder why I'm wasting my time on this "game" that has become a chore with no joy left in it for me.
Okay, so it looks like I was a little late to the party, but I will give my thoughts on how Random Queues went for me on release.
1. I immediately noticed the massive EXP gain for low level characters (specifically for level 60+). This was cool. I like having another activity I can complete to level new characters, since previously it was just (still buggy) stronghold bears, power leveling in the underdark quests, or the long and tedious storyline with little to no rewards. Don't get me wrong, I loved going through most of the original zone storyline the first time. It just doesn't hold the same appeal on the later run throughs, and doesn't have any rewards (other than EXP and a retraining token) to get someone with a max level character running them. So overall the ability to spam leveling dungeons to level is a much more varied experience, although, being limited to only a daily key even for VIP players is a bit annoying.
2. Okay, so apparently I had never seen a bunch of the leveling dungeons. I got to experience some content I had never seen before. Sadly, it was a complete cakewalk, which made any of the special mechanics pointless. I still loved the artwork, but it seemed fairly redundant after I got placed into the same random leveling dungeon 8 times in a row. I also got to experience the bugs of content I had never seen before, so expect to get more reports now Also, why are there achievements for cool sounding (I assume) dungeons that don't exist?
3. Some queues just don't have any rewards. The AD from random queue is nice, but queues like Normal Assault Svardborg just don't have any meaningful reward contained in the content themselves. Normal Svardborg differs from Normal Demogorgon in that as far as I know Normal Svardborg cannot drop legendary rings, doesn't drop the materials needed to make its own keys, and shares the same keys with the master version. It feels pretty bad queuing into a trial and realizing that even if you win, the only reward you will get is the random queue AD and 100 or so RP.
4. Keys... Okay, so I understand that legendary dragon keys are a nice selling item and all, and to make them as juicy as possible, players need to either be annoyed or limited by the "free" system, but at this point I think the complexity of the free system has gotten so out of hand with random queues, that it needs some love and attention. I am going to be totally honest, I have been playing off and on for a little over 2 years now, and I still can't claim mastery over the key creation system. One of the biggest issues is that all the different keys are hidden in a 12 different campaign menus, each requiring their own crafting ingredient, and sometimes even open multiple types of content. A possible solution could involve crafting master keys (probably would exclude the heroes accord dungeons) by collecting multiple sets of any existing campaign currency (like River District daily, but with campaign currencies). I don't like the 20 hour creation times, but really the main piece I can't handle is the complexity and overwhelming number of tasks I would need to complete to have all keys ready for every random queue possibility. Maybe even add a campaign skeleton key to the Wondrous Bazaar. Although, it's worth noting that if you price a key higher than the results of the rewards, nobody is going to buy it *cough* Epic Dungeon Key.
5. Item level as a measurement of player ability has always been an issue. With the item level changes in 11b, this was adjusted to be slightly more accurate, but ended up more closely relating to a measurement of how up-to-date your gear is rather than actually how good your gear or character is. This is most painfully obvious when pugging random queues. I know that I can bring friends, I know that I can queue privately, but random queues always looked to me like a way of improving pug queues. One of the main reasons people don't want to end up in FBI, is because the requirements aren't accurate. A group of 11ks (or even 9ks) can in fact beat FBI in semi reasonable amounts of time, but often times a pug group of 14ks cannot even make it up the hill. This is mainly due to the fact that item level isn't a good (or even reasonable) measurement of success rate. I don't want to end up in FBI, not because I don't want a challenge, and not because I don't think the rewards are worthwhile, but because I don't want to be expected to hard carry the whole group to the end. I hate looking at paingiver, since it is more useless than item level, but I think it paints a fairly decent picture in this situation. This was my first experience with random epic dungeon:
This probably seems fine, since I am 13k item level, which is way over the requirement. Until everyone figures out that that I am playing a cleric, and notices that it took 51 minutes to complete CN (we never had a full party wipe). The group I was placed in all just barely met the queue requirements (by item level), and were basically along for the ride. Even as a cleric, I couldn't help but do more damage because they were dealing so little to begin with. I would like to say that this is just an outlier, but from my experience in pug groups this is the norm. Expect to carry the entire dungeon, or expect to lose, regardless of class. Currently, everyone just drops as much junk on their character that has a higher item level until they can get into a queue, and then they queue for it. This doesn't create good characters, and often times they are considerably weaker than a properly built one of the same item level. There are also the opposite that exist, players who spend all their time at a lower item level trying to get all of the perfect pieces before moving on. These players are considerably stronger than the average player of their item level.
I highly recommend looking into queue requirements, and finding a different way to limit players from entering, since item level just isn't a good one. Other possible limiters could involve a ranked ladder system, completing solo challenges to make sure players have what it takes, maybe try to weight only 1-2 minimum requirement players to each group, or any other possibilities that prevent players from feeling like they literally always have to carry their entire team by themselves... especially support classes.
This probably seems fine, since I am 13k item level, which is way over the requirement. Until everyone figures out that that I am playing a cleric, and notice that it took 51 minutes to complete CN (we never had a full party wipe).
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
"we don’t think it’s particularly exciting to run the same dungeon forever" *cough* ToNG*
Well, it's not *that* bad... I mean, you only have to run it like 3000-5000 times per character - that's only going to take you a few years....stop complaining
Seriously though - the RQs and the UES drop rate have reduced my interest in the game to the degree that
I spent a whole evening looking for upcoming RPGs that I could start playing instead - found one, which sounds really interesting, but it is not scheduled for release until 2019.
Decided not to buy any Zen this round. Seriously, why should I support a a game that is becoming less and less enjoyable?
Ran into a problem with the random leveling dungeon last night. First, Spell Plaque is a very long dungeon to run for just ADs, second was the group with my 10k HR alt carrying the majority of the load and a GWF (probably level appropriate) way behind the TR in the middle.
We got to the end, a long run, and died a few times as the others were not strong enough to stay alive long. I switch to ranged and we got farther along but still died alone. After a lot of failures, I tried to get a vote to abandon, which failed, while the GWF at 1/4 the damage of the TR (about 1/4 me) derided the TR and did a vote kick (I denied). A few more failures and the TR dropped, the GWFs comments may have played a part. I then left. Pro tip: man in last place should not rant.
If you are going to review scaling then please realize that some people running these are under geared alts looking for a ride.
I use to not mind carrying a group, but last night was bad and weakening me thus extending the nightmare will make me rethink the random queue idea altogether.
Don't make many comments about this game but the random queue system has made me decide to make a few. Firstly let me say I have 2 toons a CW with a GS of 12.5K+ and an OP of about 10.25K+, and I have played many times through the random Queues. Overall the this system could work but it needs some tuning as a CW the comments made about top level dungeons is fair, as a OP the same issue of not splitting the dungeon tiers up still applies. My OP can only join skirmish and dungeons I can not earn salvage or gain extra rewards this is frustrating and bad. You need 5 Dungeon groups. 1 Dungeons (12+) all the pre level 60 stuff 2 Dungeons (Epic Tier 1) Epic versions of the pre level 60 stuff 3 Dungeons (EpicTier 2) Malabog to Lostmouth Lair 4 Dungeons (Epic Tier 3) Castle Never onwards 5 Dungeons Hero's Accord
You may wish to split skirmishes into 2 groups as well.
The AD system works as far as I am concerned. But having the extra queues increases the ability of higher geared players to earn more AD which is what is needed.
Lastly fix the bugs in the Dungeons they will put people off the queue system. SVA is really a nasty event when you have depleted Drufti's HP he does not die., Merchant Prince's Folly Tank left with the T-Rex on his own not nice.
@asterdahl So I understand the development team is afraid there will be too many categories available for random queues, which will lead to too much time required to run all the runs. There is a way to solve this issue.
If each category has multiple tiers, with all their own RAD bonusses, you could make it that running 1 T2 eDungeon gives you the bonus for T1 eDungeon and T2 eDungeon. Running the T3 eDungeon in the first places give the T1 eDungeon, T2 eDungeon and T3 eDungeon. Of course you can only get each bonus once.
That way, you will run the most difficult dungeon that you are able to run. No need to scale down by removing armor, since if you're 15k iLevel and you insist on running a T1 (eSoT for example), you will just get a lower RAD bonus rewards compared to what would be possible for you to achieve at max.
This will scale with future dungeons, where your current plan will not, and it doesn't have to affect your plan for Hero's Accord
As has been said before, once you add T9G and then later a tier 4 dungeon to ERQ, continuing to ignore the tiering that is already part of the game will make ERQs unplayable altogether, and you will have to implement something like this idea then, so just do it now
This will also eliminate the perceived value of the extremely unpopular leaver penalty, as people will be choosing the tier they want to run and are prepared for
If you still feel the need to punish people for ditching, make the RAD bonus eligibility kick in at the start of the random dungeon, so if someone leaves, they lose their chance at that RAD bonus for the day... this would probably be unfortunate if someone actually dc'd while really trying to run the dungeon, but the current system is unwieldy enough to make many more outliers victims and is easily abusable no matter how more complex you make it
Additionally, while you guys are planning on making the down-scaling work correctly for the leveling dungeons, I would strongly recommend against removing feats and powers from builds to make players more appropriate to dungeon level... Many level 70 builds are set up to only work with high level feats and powers, so you'd be forcing players to change everything about how they play the toon they spent a lot of time building and getting used to
I don't know how the current system for scaling works (other than it basically doesn't,) but it seems to me that all you'd have to do is add something like a 1% debuff to outgoing damage and healing and buff incoming damage by 1% per level (remembering to do the opposite for up-leveling players that go to the stronghold or Vault of the Nine) and let everyone test that for a while on preview
Obviously something would have to be done to buffing and debuffing feats and powers, but that could be addressed once you had some test data to look at, but hopefully some similar sort of dampening could happen there as well
PLEASE expedite these changes!
12b brought a lot of pain and complaints, and while your taking some time to respond to some feedback here is very appreciated, there has been a lot of anger boiling up since the official preview threads started back in August, and that is a very real problem that should not be ignored as it will take a toll at some point, so please do more than wait and see if people stop being angry and frustrated
These things are reasonable and immediately actionable, and should be implemented as soon as possible
You are completely missing one of the basic reasons why people run Temple of spiders repeatedly over other dungeons...KEYS!!!!! It only requires ONE key, which anyone with VIP can access everyday, and you can buy extra ones with AD whenever you want.
This random Queue idea is HORRIBLE! I, and my fiends, choose what dungeons we run based on what we need from it (epic gear) and what KEYS we have available. If I don't have a Greater Demonic Key I'm not going to run Castle Never because I can't access the extra chest. Sure, you can buy the Legendary Dragon Key for real money, but I don't have endless amounts of that. I am disabled and don't work.
With every new area/campaign you introduce you make the game more and more unplayable. I have 6 characters. I can no longer play with most of them. I am down to just 2 mains. Why? Because of KEYS! In order to do the dungeons I need I have to run the old content. Sharandar for Gold Crescents, Dread Ring for Scripts and Demon stuff, Dragons for the dragon components to make keys for Lostmouth and Shores. Everything requires keys, and grinding for the components to make the keys.
I've got an idea, how about every dungeon you complete you get a drop of the components to make another key...OR just give another key once a day. That allows for another run of that dungeon at least ONCE. If more runs are desired THEN buy a key. If you make dungeons random, you put me into places where I might not be able to access the rewards and then the run is a waste of my time. It will be enough to push me out of the game completely. It's already becoming unmanageable for me...and not fun to play anymore because of the constant grind for the stupid keys.
From the latest dev post on this 'Our goal is that everyone feels they are earning roughly the same AD while having a more varied experience' - personally I am now earning less AD and have a less varied experience.
It's not impossible to level scale players down for skirmishes, and this is something we'd like to do in the future. Unfortunately, skirmishes were never adjusted to scale like dungeons when Module 6 was released and it's not completely trivial to adjust them. With that in mind, we'd like to fix level scaling and then hopefully make skirmishes available even once you've passed the level band. We apologize for the inconvenience until that day.
I've talked at length about why we don't have a second skirmish queue, but as far as why Kessell's Retreat and Shores of Tuern are not in the skirmish category, but instead in the epic dungeon category, they've actually been in that section of the queue system for some time, although their AD bonuses may not have been update in all cases.
Although we shipped them as skirmishes, they were a bit inconsistent with how other skirmishes have played in the past. We had some internal discussion and standardized the internal guidelines for what makes a dungeon a dungeon, a skirmish a skirmish and a trial a trial around the release of Module 9 or Module 10. At this time, we recategorized a few queues that felt out of place.
Think about scaling in both directions would add a ton of options.
Go back and turn all the level 60 5-man dungeons back on, I mean ALL Throne of Idris, Dread Vault, Caverns, Frozen Heart, ect. along with the old level 60 version of VT, ELOL, ETOS and so on. Scale all players up or down to level 60 like in Siege of Neverwinter. Let them drop the old gear for transmute, salvage, or for use by level 60ish players. If you have to adjust the salvage amount that's fine, let's say 2000 ad like the blue gear. You will still have BIS players blasting through which can't be helped, but it will give fun/somewhat challenging content for alts and newbies. Everyone has been begging for these dungeons back, begging for these transmutes, better new player experience, and would be very little effort on the dev side.
Same could be done with skirmish and trial. Bring back level 60 Tiamat to give low levels a raid they can be part of. Old level 60 SoT can drop rings of the shore for salvage. Just adjust your rewards to be fair.
This would double the amount of playable content in the game and let you add one more random que that everyone can run.
The collective answer for "why not split queue N into more queues?" is basically the following: we don't really want random queues to become the only thing everyone does when they log in. With 5 queues already, those players that can do all 5 will have to carve out a decent amount of time to get through all 5. We'd like to not create an even bigger list of checkboxes players feel like they have to get through every day to earn the top rewards.
We'd like the random queue list to feel like it's something you could complete in a somewhat reasonable amount of time, and in a reasonably long play session you could go on to queue for individual things you'd like to run.
I think that's a reasonable position to take. However, I think that not only does it make sense for you to consider how many random queues, but also how they divide up the players.
In my opinion, the best experience is when players are matched with folks who are relatively similar in gear / progression level.
And currently, the system is overwhelmingly resulting in unbalanced parties. Especially in leveling dungeons, but also in epic dungeons. The idea that Kessel's Retreat and Master Spellplague are in the same bucket is strange, encouraging folks to run epic random dungeons with a premade group or risk wasting 15min waiting for abandon.
I would aim for a system that allows folks to more easily self-select into the content they are prepared to face, hopefully running into people with similar progression level and without undoing some of the good that random queues introduce.
I would have 4 categories of random queues
Dungeons
Skrimishes
Trials
New Content (maybe called Hero's Call or something silly)
But within the Dungeon's category (and later with skrimishes and trials if needed), you could subdivide it into 3 possible queues.
Leveling Dungeon (1x)
T1-T2 Dungeon (1.5x)
T3 Dungeon (2x)
The idea would be that you get an AD bonus for random queuing any of the 3 Dungeon queues, but you get a one-time AD bonus or multiplier to the AD if you choose the harder content. Regardless which of the 3 Dungeon queues you run, you only get the Random Queue payout once.
Additionally, rather than Hero's Accord, which gives lackluster RP bonus and enforces a party composition that I can't seem to get anyone to enjoy (even though I think OP/DC/HR/CW/GWF can clear tong just fine), we would introduce a random queue just for new campaign content. It could reward RP or campaign currency, and could contain a mix of content (skrim / dung) and only be available to those who have unlocked all of the new campaign queues.
I realize that this does increase the number of queues, but not the number that you would need to run in order to completely benefit from the RQ bonuses. And I believe it would better allow folks to filter into content that would be right for them, without giving as much of an incentive for highly geared players to always run leveling dungeons.
i will be very direct on this: since mod12b release i played just 2 dungeons, leveling ones and im not planning of playing group content anymore. mod 12b and class imbalances in Tong killed the fun for me.
Variety does not equal fun. Fun is different for everyone, depending where they're at, what they're working on, and who they're playing with. REMOVING CHOICE REMOVES FUN.
+1 to this right here. This change was not bad because of AD to me. I refuse to have my choice taken from me. It's that simple. Imagine going to a restaurant you've eaten at for years. You know you love 3 of their dishes. You've tried the other 5 dishes and found them completely disgusting. Now you enter and are told that the waiter will be randomly choosing your meal from a preselected list that includes your most despised meals. Is that ok? This is what you are essentially doing. Force feeding me a pile of garbage and trying to tell me it's filet mignon. It's not filet. I know it's not because I tried it once and did not like it at all.
I couldn't be bothered to read through the majority of this thread because it quickly became apparent that RQs aren't going to change in any meaningful way. On the contrary, reading the dev rational leaves me believing that RQ's will only get worse as time wears on and new content gets added.
The whole system is ill thought out and just seems like 2-3 people slapped some poor ideas together with no forward thinking to the effect the queues would have 1/3/6/12 months down the road.
I still don't understand the point of the leaver penalty. Correct me if I'm wrong but in a public queue, if a player decides to leave, the system sends in a replacement.
Without the penalty, if a player decides they don't like the dungeon they leave and someone else replaces them.
With the penalty, the player goes afk or logs off in hope of the party kicking them or voting abandon so they can avoid the penalty.
Lastly fix the bugs in the Dungeons they will put people off the queue system. SVA is really a nasty event when you have depleted Drufti's HP he does not die., Merchant Prince's Folly Tank left with the T-Rex on his own not nice.
I agree that the mechanics of the T-rex version where to finish it and get gold means a tank (or someone else, I as a CW have done it quite a few times where no-one else thought to) needs to pull it away from everything and keep it busy (unless there are a few people with insane DPS and can kill it fast enough which isn't always the case) which means potentially someone is left alone in there stuck with a giant thing not dying or letting you leave, is not ideal. I can't count how many times myself and one other person have stayed on our own to kill it off so we can leave, slowly whittling it down and wasting our time, while the rest of them just pop-out and move-on to other content. I'm sure I also have been guilty of leaving at the end not realizing that some poor person is still in there with it. I would like to see it change so that once the rank is awarded, if the T-rex is still alive and engaged no-one is able to leave and some notice pops-up telling you that you have unfinished business or something ("Your allies need your help!"). That way no-one would be left holding the bag on their own. With VIP rank with the travel gate you can actually just let yourself die and when you go back to the fire leave using your personal travel gate, I've done that when left alone a couple of times, but that is useless to most people. Would be better if everyone was forced to stay somehow until it was either dead or distracted, or now thinking about it as I write, better still it just faded-away as soon as the final rank and rewards popped-up. Then everyone could just leave no problems. Whatever, the current way it works is awful for those left behind and needs fixing.
Regarding MSP and FBI in the epic queue, what if there was both a minimum item level requirement per player, AND an average item level requirement for the group? Once a group is matched, their average IL would then be checked to determine which dungeons in that random queue are available for that group.
The average (different per dungeon) could be set high enough for MSP & FBI to ensure that you don't get 1x 15k IL person with a group of barely 11k IL people, but low enough for the "easier" epics that a full group of 11k's can enter.
Am I correct in thinking the random Queues are an attempt to deal with the issue where the player base was expressing frustration with wait times for queue-able content? If this is true, I don't think this solves that issue, it only masks it or even makes it worse. There are a few reasons to run the content: entertainment, specific gear or other reward (boss drops or shards for SH), salvage (and seals) and the rAD.
If I am going for entertainment, potentially random content and random players is an option to be entertained....in some way.
If I going for specific gear, random content will not do, although I like that you are trying to make the shard piece work better.
If I am going for salvage and seals, random content will not do either, I need to know where I am going based on keys that I have and gear that I want to salvage, purple vs blue, time vs number of drops/chests etc.
If I am simply after rAD for my runs and some seals, I guess I am OK with the random queue idea, the cost to acquire a chance at rAD is taking a chance on the random and hope we end up in a place that is suitable. Personally I would prefer to know which content I am about to run, as I may choose a different load out depending on where I am going, but that is fairly minor. Honestly a few thousand rAD is not really a motivator for me to spend too much time in a dungeon, at least not more than a few minutes. My time is limited and I can't risk be in MSP for an hour or more with a low geared group for a trivial amount of AD, or worse a failed attempt with no loot and a penalty for leaving. This sort of ties in with the IL requirements for success and why the public queue is not getting the use it maybe should in the first place for higher level dungeons.... Five 11K players are not getting through some of this content that has a minimum IL of 11K.
So that risk leaves me with a few options, continue to use the public queues for the exact content I want to run with lessened rewards and even longer wait times as the player base is spread out between even more queue options, or the usual private Queue options.
I think if you want to increase the run rate of specific content, you adjust the rewards for that content. How about an algorithm for least run content or longest queue time that makes that dungeon the dungeon of the hour or something with decent rewards.
Overall it is an OK idea, I just don't think it solves the problem it was intended to and instead is just making people mad that they feel like they are forced to run random for the rAD...
I think we need to face facts. After listening to the developers it's clear they have no intention of fixing any of the real problems with random queues. They are willing to slap a Band-Aid on the guild problem but they have ZERO desire to change the fundamental horrors. Why? I think it's simple. The game isn't making enough money so they've been told to force players into buying stuff to play. More Zen purchases like completion tokens, wards, and legendary keys. And that's EXACTLY what this last module was, a gigantic money grab. High level toons had to pour millions of AD into refining and wards to recover some of what the bonding nerf took away. Lower level characters are expected to buy completion tokens and improve their gear. And we're all supposed to have an endless supply of keys to open reward chests in content we've decided isn't worth running. No players were asking for ANY of these "features", in fact we're demanding the opposite. And they're hoping that by giving us a tiny, almost cosmetic change to the stupidity that we'll swallow it, say "Thank you!" and keep playing.
I also wonder whether any group ever managed to complete hero's accord.
I've done a lot of ToNG since the random queues appeared but none of these groups could queue for hero's accord due to the 3 DPS classes requirement.
With 3 DPS classes, it's gonna take the cream of the crop in terms of both equipement and competence to complete ToNG. And those who can do it certainly don't care about the pitiful amount of RP and seals hero's accord rewards.
tripsofthrymrMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,624Community Moderator
Thank you for sharing your thoughts in great detail. This is another example of excellent, open communication we have seen lately. I can't stress enough how appreciated it is. Even when players disagree with decisions (inevitable), it's so much better when there's dialog.
Of course, there's also bringing back old dungeons as leveling dungeons, which is something we've done with a few dungeons recently. We'd like to continue to do that, however, it also takes some time to make sure the dungeon is in working order and scaled down to three players. Generally bringing them back as leveling dungeons won't have a huge impact on the average player's day-to-day, for instance, when we brought back a number of missing leveling dungeons, we didn't necessarily see that there was tremendous interest in running them. Which is to be expected with a leveling dungeon. But we would like to bring more back, so we appreciate your patience.
Those of us pining for the old dungeons do so because of the sense of wonder they invoked when we first encountered them.
Those encountering the returned leveling dungeons today have an entirely different experience. Pre-RQ, 70's queued for the fastest clears (including CT, the first dungeon that a new player encounters). New players were turned off of dungeons. Returning the old dungeons in a state that lets new players experience the fun we old-timers associate with them will benefit everyone. Part of that process is giving 70's something better to do until a real level sync is in place.
As an aside, I was really excited when Karrundax came back. It was extremely fun back in the day to coordinate a strategy, keep everyone alive and battle through tough minions and bosses. That excitement evaporated when I realized that it was trivial to solo even with most gear removed, and that if I queued with a level-appropriate alt, the rest of the party would trivialize it for me.
minotaur2857Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,141Arc User
edited November 2017
I can't run elol or FBI due to bugs, and many of my chars are not up to mSP so random epic Q is not for me, I don't want to run snoozefest levelling dungeons so that basically leaves me with only random skirmish for ADs and I'm not over fond of those. I used to run MC/VT/eToS/CN and less often eCC/eGWD reasonably regularly for ADs but haven't run a single dungeon since random queues, the design has just turned me off completely.
More random queues, we know you don't want more queues but almost EVERYBODY is telling you that is what's needed, I would use a "random T2" queue on a regular basis. Also my lower geared alts in smaller guilds would really welcome going back to being able to get some ADs and dungeon shards out of selected T1s. The R9 and R7 guilds I'm part of have barely earned a dungeon shard between them since random queues.
Cryptic has a horrible history going back to CoH of "No you can't play your way, you'll do it the way we want you to play" and it nearly killed CoH, they had to sell it in the end for it to survive and prosper for many more years, don't do this to NW.
On that front, the char I really want to play is a DPS GF which can't tank anything beyond eToS, I want to queue as DPS but can't.
There are much better solutions to the problem of people taking gear off to get easier dungeons on random queues then putting it back on if you base what dungeons are available on a character's IL. For example you could hold a character's maximum IL ever, and base what dungeons they can get off that, so they only get to manipulate it once.
Regarding MSP and FBI in the epic queue, what if there was both a minimum item level requirement per player, AND an average item level requirement for the group? Once a group is matched, their average IL would then be checked to determine which dungeons in that random queue are available for that group.
The average (different per dungeon) could be set high enough for MSP & FBI to ensure that you don't get 1x 15k IL person with a group of barely 11k IL people, but low enough for the "easier" epics that a full group of 11k's can enter.
What makes you think their setting for that would be any higher than the minimum ilvl req, when they regularly point to their 'all dungeons are tested with a full group at minimum reqs' statement?
How your random queue update affected me just before;
I just went in for a while and normally I would have done my dailies, I pick one area I want to work on and do that, atm River dist dig sites, then I would do 2 Skirmishes, probably Master of the Hunt because that one is my fave, and 2 Dungeons, usually Malabog, also my fave, I would have done those for the daily AD's, then waited in the pug queue for a couple of ndemos to use up the 2 keys I made, chatted for a bit while I was waiting for the queues then logged off and gone to bed when they were done. Well I did the dailies in River Dist, got to PE and thought about what a random queue for AD's entails and felt a sinking sick sort of feeling in the pit of my stomach, felt a shudder, and decided to queue only for ndemo at that moment. I waited and did one ndemo, then sat for a couple of minutes in the roof garden thinking about what to do next, thought once more about the random queue and how I won't know til I'm in there what the F I'm going to be doing and am I really up for that being tired, I ended-up feeling rubbish and got turned-off the idea of doing any more content so closed the game.
On the subject of IG, Ive also seen a trend lately of botters in the skirmish queue, they stand there and occasionally heal and do nothing else to contribute to the skirmish. There should be a way to kick them from the skirmish, or at the very least easily report them for botting with a click.
My first attempt at the Random Skirmish (and last by the way) was real bad. I didn't know what was going on. I tried to join in but was lost from the start. Died twice, healed almost none, and I just can't see how I could have been any more useless then I was. It was such a bad experience I have not been back sense. To have then be punished for being a bot (and I am not a bot in any way) would have pushed me from the game all together.
This random queue for dungeons at least has not been as bad, but from my point of view has hurt my overall experience in the game and made me question if this game is really not for me, or any new player at all. The hyper focus on the high end of the 70 level characters and the flat out refusal to accept this change was bad for newer players and characters just hurts even more IMO.
On the subject of IG, Ive also seen a trend lately of botters in the skirmish queue, they stand there and occasionally heal and do nothing else to contribute to the skirmish. There should be a way to kick them from the skirmish, or at the very least easily report them for botting with a click.
My first attempt at the Random Skirmish (and last by the way) was real bad. I didn't know what was going on. I tried to join in but was lost from the start. Died twice, healed almost none, and I just can't see how I could have been any more useless then I was. It was such a bad experience I have not been back sense. To have then be punished for being a bot (and I am not a bot in any way) would have pushed me from the game all together.
This random queue for dungeons at least has not been as bad, but from my point of view has hurt my overall experience in the game and made me question if this game is really not for me, or any new player at all. The hyper focus on the high end of the 70 level characters and the flat out refusal to accept this change was bad for newer players and characters just hurts even more IMO.
You're contradicting yourself. You're saying being paired with characters beyond your level has hurt your experience, yet end game players not wanting to accept this change hurts it more? We're saying the same thing, players need to be paired with characters closer to where they are in level and progression. No one is benefiting from being paired with characters way ahead of, or way behind them. And you can't blame the focus on 70+ characters when thats where 99% of active players are.
From the latest dev post on this 'Our goal is that everyone feels they are earning roughly the same AD while having a more varied experience' - personally I am now earning less AD and have a less varied experience.
I'm sorry to hear that! Definitely one of the concerns a lot of players had when these changes were first announced on preview was that their overall AD earn would go down. We made some adjustments based on initial feedback, with the intent that they would possibly even go up, and our data is showing that the amount of AD the average player is earning has definitely gone up.
I always worry when I am told the "average" is X. If we see 10 players. one player gets 1991 and the other nine get 1 each then the average is 200 each. But the "average" is not reflecting the reality of the majority of the player base.
To be honest, as a casual player who often is lucky to get one random in a night, my AD is better on the character who gets to run that night. But when compared to my friends, they have felt a loss. I really hope my increase is not being used to cover their loss as "averaging fine". :-(
Comments
I understand what you guys are trying to accomplish, and on paper, everything you've said is technically correct, but here's the bottom line.
Variety does not equal fun. Fun is different for everyone, depending where they're at, what they're working on, and who they're playing with. REMOVING CHOICE REMOVES FUN. Am i getting more AD by running a random dungeon/random skirmish? Yes, but it is NOT FUN, because instead of my play time being on my main 2-3 characters that are GOOD and STRONG that i have slaved to CREATE, and being rewarded with salveage that i can convert on ANY CHARACTER, I'm being FORCED to play all 15 of my characters that are not fun to play, that i couldn't possibly build up because after 1500 hours i'm still working on my first two characters. I also couldn't ever hope to churn through all their invoke bonus AD in this system because after going through 2 or 3 characters I'm bored and not having fun so I close the game.
Changes to this game have made it clear you don't like alts being used as invoke machines. With no changes to dungeon rewards you neglect that this is a necessity (even if you spend money on this game) to build up a single character.
You've removed choice, or at least the ability to choose and still get paid a reasonable amount for it. Stop saying we can still queue for whatever we want, we know, the point is that ITS NOT WORTH IT. We aren't being paid enough for our time. I find the choice I'm making more and more these days is to just not boot the game up.
1. I immediately noticed the massive EXP gain for low level characters (specifically for level 60+). This was cool. I like having another activity I can complete to level new characters, since previously it was just (still buggy) stronghold bears, power leveling in the underdark quests, or the long and tedious storyline with little to no rewards. Don't get me wrong, I loved going through most of the original zone storyline the first time. It just doesn't hold the same appeal on the later run throughs, and doesn't have any rewards (other than EXP and a retraining token) to get someone with a max level character running them. So overall the ability to spam leveling dungeons to level is a much more varied experience, although, being limited to only a daily key even for VIP players is a bit annoying.
2. Okay, so apparently I had never seen a bunch of the leveling dungeons. I got to experience some content I had never seen before. Sadly, it was a complete cakewalk, which made any of the special mechanics pointless. I still loved the artwork, but it seemed fairly redundant after I got placed into the same random leveling dungeon 8 times in a row. I also got to experience the bugs of content I had never seen before, so expect to get more reports now
3. Some queues just don't have any rewards. The AD from random queue is nice, but queues like Normal Assault Svardborg just don't have any meaningful reward contained in the content themselves. Normal Svardborg differs from Normal Demogorgon in that as far as I know Normal Svardborg cannot drop legendary rings, doesn't drop the materials needed to make its own keys, and shares the same keys with the master version. It feels pretty bad queuing into a trial and realizing that even if you win, the only reward you will get is the random queue AD and 100 or so RP.
4. Keys... Okay, so I understand that legendary dragon keys are a nice selling item and all, and to make them as juicy as possible, players need to either be annoyed or limited by the "free" system, but at this point I think the complexity of the free system has gotten so out of hand with random queues, that it needs some love and attention. I am going to be totally honest, I have been playing off and on for a little over 2 years now, and I still can't claim mastery over the key creation system. One of the biggest issues is that all the different keys are hidden in a 12 different campaign menus, each requiring their own crafting ingredient, and sometimes even open multiple types of content. A possible solution could involve crafting master keys (probably would exclude the heroes accord dungeons) by collecting multiple sets of any existing campaign currency (like River District daily, but with campaign currencies). I don't like the 20 hour creation times, but really the main piece I can't handle is the complexity and overwhelming number of tasks I would need to complete to have all keys ready for every random queue possibility. Maybe even add a campaign skeleton key to the Wondrous Bazaar. Although, it's worth noting that if you price a key higher than the results of the rewards, nobody is going to buy it *cough* Epic Dungeon Key.
5. Item level as a measurement of player ability has always been an issue. With the item level changes in 11b, this was adjusted to be slightly more accurate, but ended up more closely relating to a measurement of how up-to-date your gear is rather than actually how good your gear or character is. This is most painfully obvious when pugging random queues. I know that I can bring friends, I know that I can queue privately, but random queues always looked to me like a way of improving pug queues. One of the main reasons people don't want to end up in FBI, is because the requirements aren't accurate. A group of 11ks (or even 9ks) can in fact beat FBI in semi reasonable amounts of time, but often times a pug group of 14ks cannot even make it up the hill. This is mainly due to the fact that item level isn't a good (or even reasonable) measurement of success rate. I don't want to end up in FBI, not because I don't want a challenge, and not because I don't think the rewards are worthwhile, but because I don't want to be expected to hard carry the whole group to the end. I hate looking at paingiver, since it is more useless than item level, but I think it paints a fairly decent picture in this situation. This was my first experience with random epic dungeon:
This probably seems fine, since I am 13k item level, which is way over the requirement. Until everyone figures out that that I am playing a cleric, and notices that it took 51 minutes to complete CN (we never had a full party wipe). The group I was placed in all just barely met the queue requirements (by item level), and were basically along for the ride. Even as a cleric, I couldn't help but do more damage because they were dealing so little to begin with. I would like to say that this is just an outlier, but from my experience in pug groups this is the norm. Expect to carry the entire dungeon, or expect to lose, regardless of class. Currently, everyone just drops as much junk on their character that has a higher item level until they can get into a queue, and then they queue for it. This doesn't create good characters, and often times they are considerably weaker than a properly built one of the same item level. There are also the opposite that exist, players who spend all their time at a lower item level trying to get all of the perfect pieces before moving on. These players are considerably stronger than the average player of their item level.
I highly recommend looking into queue requirements, and finding a different way to limit players from entering, since item level just isn't a good one. Other possible limiters could involve a ranked ladder system, completing solo challenges to make sure players have what it takes, maybe try to weight only 1-2 minimum requirement players to each group, or any other possibilities that prevent players from feeling like they literally always have to carry their entire team by themselves... especially support classes.
Signature [WIP] - tyvm John
Seriously though - the RQs and the UES drop rate have reduced my interest in the game to the degree that
We got to the end, a long run, and died a few times as the others were not strong enough to stay alive long. I switch to ranged and we got farther along but still died alone. After a lot of failures, I tried to get a vote to abandon, which failed, while the GWF at 1/4 the damage of the TR (about 1/4 me) derided the TR and did a vote kick (I denied). A few more failures and the TR dropped, the GWFs comments may have played a part. I then left. Pro tip: man in last place should not rant.
If you are going to review scaling then please realize that some people running these are under geared alts looking for a ride.
I use to not mind carrying a group, but last night was bad and weakening me thus extending the nightmare will make me rethink the random queue idea altogether.
Firstly let me say I have 2 toons a CW with a GS of 12.5K+ and an OP of about 10.25K+, and I have played many times through the random Queues.
Overall the this system could work but it needs some tuning as a CW the comments made about top level dungeons is fair, as a OP the same issue of not splitting the dungeon tiers up still applies. My OP can only join skirmish and dungeons I can not earn salvage or gain extra rewards this is frustrating and bad.
You need 5 Dungeon groups.
1 Dungeons (12+) all the pre level 60 stuff
2 Dungeons (Epic Tier 1) Epic versions of the pre level 60 stuff
3 Dungeons (EpicTier 2) Malabog to Lostmouth Lair
4 Dungeons (Epic Tier 3) Castle Never onwards
5 Dungeons Hero's Accord
You may wish to split skirmishes into 2 groups as well.
The AD system works as far as I am concerned. But having the extra queues increases the ability of higher geared players to earn more AD which is what is needed.
Lastly fix the bugs in the Dungeons they will put people off the queue system. SVA is really a nasty event when you have depleted Drufti's HP he does not die., Merchant Prince's Folly Tank left with the T-Rex on his own not nice.
This will scale with future dungeons, where your current plan will not, and it doesn't have to affect your plan for Hero's Accord
As has been said before, once you add T9G and then later a tier 4 dungeon to ERQ, continuing to ignore the tiering that is already part of the game will make ERQs unplayable altogether, and you will have to implement something like this idea then, so just do it now
This will also eliminate the perceived value of the extremely unpopular leaver penalty, as people will be choosing the tier they want to run and are prepared for
If you still feel the need to punish people for ditching, make the RAD bonus eligibility kick in at the start of the random dungeon, so if someone leaves, they lose their chance at that RAD bonus for the day... this would probably be unfortunate if someone actually dc'd while really trying to run the dungeon, but the current system is unwieldy enough to make many more outliers victims and is easily abusable no matter how more complex you make it
Additionally, while you guys are planning on making the down-scaling work correctly for the leveling dungeons, I would strongly recommend against removing feats and powers from builds to make players more appropriate to dungeon level... Many level 70 builds are set up to only work with high level feats and powers, so you'd be forcing players to change everything about how they play the toon they spent a lot of time building and getting used to
I don't know how the current system for scaling works (other than it basically doesn't,) but it seems to me that all you'd have to do is add something like a 1% debuff to outgoing damage and healing and buff incoming damage by 1% per level (remembering to do the opposite for up-leveling players that go to the stronghold or Vault of the Nine) and let everyone test that for a while on preview
Obviously something would have to be done to buffing and debuffing feats and powers, but that could be addressed once you had some test data to look at, but hopefully some similar sort of dampening could happen there as well
PLEASE expedite these changes!
12b brought a lot of pain and complaints, and while your taking some time to respond to some feedback here is very appreciated, there has been a lot of anger boiling up since the official preview threads started back in August, and that is a very real problem that should not be ignored as it will take a toll at some point, so please do more than wait and see if people stop being angry and frustrated
These things are reasonable and immediately actionable, and should be implemented as soon as possible
This random Queue idea is HORRIBLE! I, and my fiends, choose what dungeons we run based on what we need from it (epic gear) and what KEYS we have available. If I don't have a Greater Demonic Key I'm not going to run Castle Never because I can't access the extra chest. Sure, you can buy the Legendary Dragon Key for real money, but I don't have endless amounts of that. I am disabled and don't work.
With every new area/campaign you introduce you make the game more and more unplayable. I have 6 characters. I can no longer play with most of them. I am down to just 2 mains. Why? Because of KEYS! In order to do the dungeons I need I have to run the old content. Sharandar for Gold Crescents, Dread Ring for Scripts and Demon stuff, Dragons for the dragon components to make keys for Lostmouth and Shores. Everything requires keys, and grinding for the components to make the keys.
I've got an idea, how about every dungeon you complete you get a drop of the components to make another key...OR just give another key once a day. That allows for another run of that dungeon at least ONCE. If more runs are desired THEN buy a key. If you make dungeons random, you put me into places where I might not be able to access the rewards and then the run is a waste of my time. It will be enough to push me out of the game completely. It's already becoming unmanageable for me...and not fun to play anymore because of the constant grind for the stupid keys.
Go back and turn all the level 60 5-man dungeons back on, I mean ALL Throne of Idris, Dread Vault, Caverns, Frozen Heart, ect. along with the old level 60 version of VT, ELOL, ETOS and so on. Scale all players up or down to level 60 like in Siege of Neverwinter. Let them drop the old gear for transmute, salvage, or for use by level 60ish players. If you have to adjust the salvage amount that's fine, let's say 2000 ad like the blue gear. You will still have BIS players blasting through which can't be helped, but it will give fun/somewhat challenging content for alts and newbies. Everyone has been begging for these dungeons back, begging for these transmutes, better new player experience, and would be very little effort on the dev side.
Same could be done with skirmish and trial. Bring back level 60 Tiamat to give low levels a raid they can be part of. Old level 60 SoT can drop rings of the shore for salvage. Just adjust your rewards to be fair.
This would double the amount of playable content in the game and let you add one more random que that everyone can run.
In my opinion, the best experience is when players are matched with folks who are relatively similar in gear / progression level.
And currently, the system is overwhelmingly resulting in unbalanced parties. Especially in leveling dungeons, but also in epic dungeons. The idea that Kessel's Retreat and Master Spellplague are in the same bucket is strange, encouraging folks to run epic random dungeons with a premade group or risk wasting 15min waiting for abandon.
I would aim for a system that allows folks to more easily self-select into the content they are prepared to face, hopefully running into people with similar progression level and without undoing some of the good that random queues introduce.
I would have 4 categories of random queues
- Dungeons
- Skrimishes
- Trials
- New Content (maybe called Hero's Call or something silly)
But within the Dungeon's category (and later with skrimishes and trials if needed), you could subdivide it into 3 possible queues.- Leveling Dungeon (1x)
- T1-T2 Dungeon (1.5x)
- T3 Dungeon (2x)
The idea would be that you get an AD bonus for random queuing any of the 3 Dungeon queues, but you get a one-time AD bonus or multiplier to the AD if you choose the harder content. Regardless which of the 3 Dungeon queues you run, you only get the Random Queue payout once.Additionally, rather than Hero's Accord, which gives lackluster RP bonus and enforces a party composition that I can't seem to get anyone to enjoy (even though I think OP/DC/HR/CW/GWF can clear tong just fine), we would introduce a random queue just for new campaign content. It could reward RP or campaign currency, and could contain a mix of content (skrim / dung) and only be available to those who have unlocked all of the new campaign queues.
I realize that this does increase the number of queues, but not the number that you would need to run in order to completely benefit from the RQ bonuses. And I believe it would better allow folks to filter into content that would be right for them, without giving as much of an incentive for highly geared players to always run leveling dungeons.
since mod12b release i played just 2 dungeons, leveling ones and im not planning of playing group content anymore.
mod 12b and class imbalances in Tong killed the fun for me.
I couldn't be bothered to read through the majority of this thread because it quickly became apparent that RQs aren't going to change in any meaningful way. On the contrary, reading the dev rational leaves me believing that RQ's will only get worse as time wears on and new content gets added.
The whole system is ill thought out and just seems like 2-3 people slapped some poor ideas together with no forward thinking to the effect the queues would have 1/3/6/12 months down the road.
Without the penalty, if a player decides they don't like the dungeon they leave and someone else replaces them.
With the penalty, the player goes afk or logs off in hope of the party kicking them or voting abandon so they can avoid the penalty.
The average (different per dungeon) could be set high enough for MSP & FBI to ensure that you don't get 1x 15k IL person with a group of barely 11k IL people, but low enough for the "easier" epics that a full group of 11k's can enter.
If I am going for entertainment, potentially random content and random players is an option to be entertained....in some way.
If I going for specific gear, random content will not do, although I like that you are trying to make the shard piece work better.
If I am going for salvage and seals, random content will not do either, I need to know where I am going based on keys that I have and gear that I want to salvage, purple vs blue, time vs number of drops/chests etc.
If I am simply after rAD for my runs and some seals, I guess I am OK with the random queue idea, the cost to acquire a chance at rAD is taking a chance on the random and hope we end up in a place that is suitable. Personally I would prefer to know which content I am about to run, as I may choose a different load out depending on where I am going, but that is fairly minor. Honestly a few thousand rAD is not really a motivator for me to spend too much time in a dungeon, at least not more than a few minutes. My time is limited and I can't risk be in MSP for an hour or more with a low geared group for a trivial amount of AD, or worse a failed attempt with no loot and a penalty for leaving. This sort of ties in with the IL requirements for success and why the public queue is not getting the use it maybe should in the first place for higher level dungeons.... Five 11K players are not getting through some of this content that has a minimum IL of 11K.
So that risk leaves me with a few options, continue to use the public queues for the exact content I want to run with lessened rewards and even longer wait times as the player base is spread out between even more queue options, or the usual private Queue options.
I think if you want to increase the run rate of specific content, you adjust the rewards for that content. How about an algorithm for least run content or longest queue time that makes that dungeon the dungeon of the hour or something with decent rewards.
Overall it is an OK idea, I just don't think it solves the problem it was intended to and instead is just making people mad that they feel like they are forced to run random for the rAD...
OP - Sunshine: 16000 IL
Casual Dailies
I've done a lot of ToNG since the random queues appeared but none of these groups could queue for hero's accord due to the 3 DPS classes requirement.
With 3 DPS classes, it's gonna take the cream of the crop in terms of both equipement and competence to complete ToNG. And those who can do it certainly don't care about the pitiful amount of RP and seals hero's accord rewards.
Those encountering the returned leveling dungeons today have an entirely different experience. Pre-RQ, 70's queued for the fastest clears (including CT, the first dungeon that a new player encounters). New players were turned off of dungeons. Returning the old dungeons in a state that lets new players experience the fun we old-timers associate with them will benefit everyone. Part of that process is giving 70's something better to do until a real level sync is in place.
As an aside, I was really excited when Karrundax came back. It was extremely fun back in the day to coordinate a strategy, keep everyone alive and battle through tough minions and bosses. That excitement evaporated when I realized that it was trivial to solo even with most gear removed, and that if I queued with a level-appropriate alt, the rest of the party would trivialize it for me.
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
More random queues, we know you don't want more queues but almost EVERYBODY is telling you that is what's needed, I would use a "random T2" queue on a regular basis. Also my lower geared alts in smaller guilds would really welcome going back to being able to get some ADs and dungeon shards out of selected T1s. The R9 and R7 guilds I'm part of have barely earned a dungeon shard between them since random queues.
Cryptic has a horrible history going back to CoH of "No you can't play your way, you'll do it the way we want you to play" and it nearly killed CoH, they had to sell it in the end for it to survive and prosper for many more years, don't do this to NW.
On that front, the char I really want to play is a DPS GF which can't tank anything beyond eToS, I want to queue as DPS but can't.
There are much better solutions to the problem of people taking gear off to get easier dungeons on random queues then putting it back on if you base what dungeons are available on a character's IL. For example you could hold a character's maximum IL ever, and base what dungeons they can get off that, so they only get to manipulate it once.
I just went in for a while and normally I would have done my dailies, I pick one area I want to work on and do that, atm River dist dig sites, then I would do 2 Skirmishes, probably Master of the Hunt because that one is my fave, and 2 Dungeons, usually Malabog, also my fave, I would have done those for the daily AD's, then waited in the pug queue for a couple of ndemos to use up the 2 keys I made, chatted for a bit while I was waiting for the queues then logged off and gone to bed when they were done. Well I did the dailies in River Dist, got to PE and thought about what a random queue for AD's entails and felt a sinking sick sort of feeling in the pit of my stomach, felt a shudder, and decided to queue only for ndemo at that moment. I waited and did one ndemo, then sat for a couple of minutes in the roof garden thinking about what to do next, thought once more about the random queue and how I won't know til I'm in there what the F I'm going to be doing and am I really up for that being tired, I ended-up feeling rubbish and got turned-off the idea of doing any more content so closed the game.
So yea, good one, new system working well.
This random queue for dungeons at least has not been as bad, but from my point of view has hurt my overall experience in the game and made me question if this game is really not for me, or any new player at all. The hyper focus on the high end of the 70 level characters and the flat out refusal to accept this change was bad for newer players and characters just hurts even more IMO.
To be honest, as a casual player who often is lucky to get one random in a night, my AD is better on the character who gets to run that night. But when compared to my friends, they have felt a loss. I really hope my increase is not being used to cover their loss as "averaging fine". :-(